By Carol Traeger
Enquirer contributor
Saturn Ion
ZOOM
The 2004 Saturn Ion Red Line has a great engine gear box and it handles with finesse.
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Wheels rating: (out of 5)
 
Delivers performance for a bargain.
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What I drove: 2004 Saturn Ion Red Line quad coupe, a four-door, four-passenger coupe
Base price: $20,385
Price as tested: $21,320 (including options and destination)
Options on test vehicle: Front and rear floor mats; Saturn Advanced Audio System.
Summary: Positively charged Ion for the tuner crowd
Drivetrain layout: Front engine, front-wheel drive
Engine: Supercharged 2.0-liter in-line 4-cylinder producing 205 horsepower and 200 lb-ft torque
Transmission: 5-speed manual
Wheelbase: 103.5 inches
Length: 185 inches
Width: 67.9 inches
Height: 55.8 inches
Weight: 2,590 pounds
EPA mpg, city/highway: 23/29
Warranty: Basic: 3 years/36,000 miles; drivetrain: 3 years/36,000 miles; roadside assist: 3 years/36,000 miles
Assembled in: Spring Hill, Tenn.
Safety: Dual-stage front air bags, front safety belt pretensioners, engine immobilizer, daytime running lights, antilock brakes.
Cool: Supercharged engine, slick shifter, affordable price, easily accessible rear seats
Uncool: Awkward rear-access doors, bland styling, down-market interior materials
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Ford has its SVT Focus, Dodge has its Neon SRT-4, and Nissan has its Sentra SE-R.
Now General Motors wants a piece of the "tuner car" pie, and it's going after it with a Saturn Ion.
An Ion, you say? The ho-hum economy car that replaced the Saturn S-Series back in 2002?
Yep. Same Ion. But different. This one's a Red Line, which means it's been tweaked by Saturn's Red Line hop shop and the speed merchants at General Motors' Performance Division.
Red Line models, which include the Vue and the Ion, are performance versions of standard street cars. The formula is simple: Take an average economy car, add more horsepower, bigger wheels, a lowered and sport-tuned suspension, and maybe a spoiler and some rocker panels, and voila, you've got a hot rod for a bargain price.
Starting with a standard Ion "quad coupe" - which has two half-sized doors that are hinged at the back - the Red Line team dumped that car's anemic 140-horsepower 2.2-liter four-cylinder engine in favor of a 205-horsepower 2.0-liter supercharged Ecotec four-cylinder.
Not only does the blown power plant produce 65 more horsepower, but it improves torque by 55 pound-feet - from 145 to 200. The engine is mated to a close-ratio Getrag five-speed manual transmission, the shifter of which has one less inch of travel than the shifter in the standard Ion.
Racetrack credentials
Testifying to how serious Saturn is about the Ion Red Line's performance, engineers spent months shaking the Ion out on racetracks throughout the country and on Germany's famed, 170-turn Nurburgring circuit. The Ion Red Line that emerged features a lowered suspension, firmer springs, larger shocks, four-wheel disc ABS brakes, a high-flow exhaust, 17-inch wheels shod in Dunlop SP9000 performance tires, performance pedals (spaced for heel-toe shifting), and Recaro sport front seats.
Performancewise, the Ion Red Line has a top speed of 144 mph. According to Saturn, it can rip from 0 to 60 mph in 6.3 seconds, and come to a stop from 60 mph in less than 120 feet.
I didn't try to verify these numbers, but I had a lot of fun spiriting this positively charged Ion around. With its 205-horsepower engine and 2,600-pound curb weight, the Ion RL feels frisky and light on its feet.
Engine-tranny combo
The engine emits a lusty burble in acceleration and feels perfectly matched to the swift-shifting gearbox. Saturn says it spaced the gear ratios evenly to keep the engine in its "sweet spot" between shifts. It works. The engine feels impossible to over-rev. Even when driving 70 mph in third gear, the tachometer registered just 4,800 rpm (the engine redlines at 6,500 rpm).
When it came to creating the Ion's exterior, Saturn's designers were apparently thinking "inside the box." In Red Line trim, the bland exterior rises halfway from the dead with the addition of a rear spoiler (available in several styles), a tiny Red Line emblem on the rear deck, a chrome-tipped exhaust pipe, special rocker moldings, and 17-inch six-spoke alloy wheels (which manage to look too dinky inside the gaping wheel wells).
Inside, the Red Line retains the regular Ion's center-mounted instrument binnacle and low-market materials, but benefits from such extra goodies as a four-spoke leather-wrapped steering wheel, Red Line shifter knob, performance pedals and Recaro sport front seats.
The fabric Recaro seats hugged me as tightly as my Great Aunt Ethel when I tossed the Ion through mountain road curves. The prickly seat fabric, however, is cruel to sunburned thighs, so bring a towel to sit on.
The 60/40-split rear seats are carved for two passengers, and can be folded flat to increase trunk space. The rear windows don't go down, and the funky half-sized rear doors are difficult to open from the rear seat.
Door problems
Yes, the quad coupe's rear doors are a mixed bag. On one hand, they make for easy cargo loading and rear-seat entry. On the other, they're difficult to open from the inside and can't be opened without opening the front doors first, which can be problematic when parked between two cars.
For example, when I went to load groceries in the back seat one day, I had to open the front door, then move behind the rear door and pull it open from the back. Now I couldn't get the grocery cart beside the car. So I had to squeeze around the rear door with the bags.
Overall, I liked the Ion Red Line. It has a great engine-gearbox combination and it handles with finesse. But I was put off by its bland exterior styling and cheap interior materials. And the rear-access doors got on my nerves.
But then I don't exactly fit the profile of the typical Ion Red Line buyer. And grocery-store convenience probably isn't high on most tuner-car buyers' priority lists. What sport-compact enthusiasts want is kick-butt performance at a bargain price. On those fronts, the race track-developed $20,385 Ion Red Line delivers. It's a viable new entry in the tuner-car market.
Contact Carol Traeger by e-mail at ctrigger@aol.com.
